Federal law requires that Tribes be consulted before construction is approved. As the Chairman of my Tribe, I sent numerous letters to the Corps, requesting consultation and expressing our concerns that the proposed pipeline would threaten our lands and contaminate our water.

Our concerns were ignored.

So we set up camp to protect our ancestors’ resting places. We also came to protect the Cannon Ball and Missouri Rivers from the half-million barrels of oil slated to pass through the pipeline.

We’re doing that not just for the Standing Rock Sioux, but also for the 17 million people living in communities and on farms downstream, whose continued existence depends on the protection of our rivers.

Without clean and dependable sources of water, our Tribe will cease to exist. Without clean and dependable sources of water, we all will cease to exist. As we say, water is life.

Thousands of people understand how critical this fight is, and they’ve come literally to stand with us at our camp along the river. More than 200 Native nations—including the Pawnee and Crow, with whom we have disputes dating back two centuries—have taken action to support us.